R02 TR: GC Tuolumne, 5/31-6/3/18

[rlown]

The mule trail was pretty easy to find in 2008 and heavily used then. As Paula pointed out, it does seem like a series of meadows until you hit a saddle with my route to Virginia to the right and my "cut" down to the left. The mule trail then hits a little forest and the trail winds up and over and down into the mattie basin. Once over that little saddle, you can see Wildcat point and you know where you are then.

[paula53]

Thank you for your replies. I am going to try for Mattie. I think the trail has cairns marking it.

[rlown]

Paula,

If you do go to mattie, please take a picture of the lake at dawn and dusk. I kind of need to know if the lake is still kind of stunted (fish.) If there are a lot of rises, it leans one way, and if there are no rises, it might lean the other way.

[paula53]

I will.

[Wandering Daisy]

I find getting good color shots in the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne difficult, because of the dark rock and steep canyon walls. So I finally got to processing a few into black and white. I thought these below portrayed the "mood" of the canyon well.

Starting in Tuolumne Meadows; snow still on peaks

Here we go- the start of all the falls

Tuolumne Falls

White Cascades just above Glen Aulin

The Tuolumne River enters Glen Aulin

More water falling from Mattie Lake

Just above California Falls

I think this also is California Falls

Lower part of California Falls

Cliffs on the south side of California Falls

[Wandering Daisy]

I did not get photos of LeConte Falls. Both on the way down and back the lighting was not good. So here are photos of Waterwheel Falls and below, down to about a mile above Pate Valley, where I turned around. Note that some photos were taken on the trip down, and some on the trip up.

Top of Waterwheel Falls

The "waterwheel"

Closer shot of the "waterwheel"

Near the bottom of Waterwheel Falls

Canyon at River mile 137, above Cathedral Creek confluence

The trail detours Muir Gorge, view south from top

Last of the falls, about half a mile below Muir Gorge

My endpoint, where I turned around

[wildhiker]

Beautiful photos! Thanks for posting.
-Phil

[gary c.]

Beautiful!!

[Wandering Daisy]

I am becoming quite fond of B&W photos. Should I shoot in B&W or convert the photo to B&W when processing? Not sure, but I thought shooting in B&W gives more signal to each pixel because the light does not have to be split between colors, and that results in better B&W photos. However when I processed color photos, I was able to lighten or darken or change saturation for each individual color, which was quite helpful.

Also, is it just me (average photographer with point and shoot camera) or is Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne and moving water hard to photograph? It is hard to get a bad photo in Yosemite Valley; but hard to get a good photo in Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne! Why? Many shots in GCT are muddy colors and too much contrast. By the way, this time I did not shoot RAW, which I probably should have. Alas, good or bad, the camera (Canon S95) that I shot these photos was lost later this summer, so I now have to get a new camera.

[fpb56]

I hiked the GC of the Tuolumne a few years back after a very dry winter in mid July. It was about 90 degrees on the river and about 75 at White Wolf. We started at WW and went up stream. It was the uphill route and we only ran into 4 people at Pate Valley coming down. We spent Two nights on the river and my hiking partner became ill so we hustled on the 3 day out to TM. Didn't enjoy it as much as we should have.